Megaphone: turn any mobile phone into a game controller

(Yahoo Design Week) – I (Eliane) was at Yahoo Design Week where students design projects were exhibited under a tent on the Yahoo campus. The Megaphone project designed by Jury Hahn from New York University was the most gadget-related one.

It is a real-time multiplayer collaborative gaming platform for big screens in public spaces. The user simply has to call the phone number displayed on top of the screen (see photo) and his avatar will appear immediately on the screen. No need to download or install any application, to control the avatar and shoot others, the keypad and the voice are sufficient.

I like the “Space Invaders” feel of the games and the simplicity of the UI. The voice-based games are particularly fun to play: people are literally screaming in their phones to grab items with their hippo-avatar. This could be a great entertainment while waiting in line in front of the movie theater! The Megaphone platform could be used to control any type of services, for more information about getting it for your venue, go to this page: playmegaphone.com/deployment.php. Look at the playmegaphone website, there is a video of people playing in Time Square.